Our Canadian "Rug Hooking Artist of the Year" is Trish Johnson from Toronto, Ontario.
Trish has been hooking since 1988. She was self-taught for the first four rugs and then joined the Georgetown rug hooking group. She has taken many hooking workshops and belongs to the teacher’s branch of the Ontario Hooking Craft Guild, the Georgetown Rug Hooking Guild and the Upper Toronto Hooking Guild.
Trish hooks rugs about places that are important to her family history, trying to answer questions about what “home” means to her. Home is where the heart is and all of her rugs are about those things and events that are dear to her heart. She designs her own patterns, mostly from her own photographs; dyes most of her own wool (especially the skies) and likes to use some recycled wool from Goodwill. Trish has been featured in Rug Hooking magazine's "A Celebration of Hand Hooked Rugs".
Trish is show here with the "Chris and Blackie" rug which depicts her mother with her pet Blackie. To see the full story please drop in to the museum.
Our American "Rug Hooking Artist of the Year" is Sibyl Osicka from Parma, Ohio.
Sibyl's introduction to rug hooking began in 1982 because she wanted to make a Victorian style rug for her living room. By 1985, she was sponsored for the Pearl McGown Teacher’s Workshop. Sibyl became accredited in 1989, and was asked to teach two different workshops that year and has been teaching since. She has traveled throughout the USA and Canada teaching and displaying her work. She continues to study and expand her knowledge in all aspects of the art.
She currently is a member of the Pearl McGown guild, Emerald#5; ATHA; and TIGHR; and completed her second accreditation in 2003 as a McGown instructor. Sibyl is on the cover of the Jan/Feb 2014 issue of Rug Hooking magazine and featured in an inside article. Sibyl also mentors students and teachers, and has taught classes over the internet. For more information on Sibyl please visit her website: http://www.sibylosicka.com/
Shown here is one of many of Sibyl's beautiful rugs that are on exhibit for the 2014 season.
"Toy Rug" designed by Margaret Masters